Timeless sounds for a contemporary workstation.

The Best Service English Spinet sample library is part of the Edition Beurmann series featuring historical European instruments. The English Spinet virtual instrument library features more than 700 single samples of the spinet built by Londoner Thomas Hitchcock in 1718.

There is barely another musical instrument to combine both zeitgeist and timelessness in the way a spinet does. Despite being around for centuries the sound of the spinet is still relevant in many musical territories, while at the same time being inextricably connected to the musical works of its time. Its brilliant timbre comprises lots of majestic warmth and elegance as well—something often underestimated due to the cold and sterile sounding spinet simulations of current keyboards and samplers.

Hitchcock's instruments are widely known as the best-sounding spinets ever built and they pointed the way ahead for all spinets to come. Only about 36 of his masterpieces are preserved to this day. This unique spinet in the collection of Andreas Beurmann still remains in excellent condition and is fully playable despite its age. With the English Spinet library, it is now available for the first time for your sampler, presented in its original Valotti tuning at 403Hz (presets at 440Hz tuning included, too).

Like harpsichords, spinets are not touch-sensitive like a pianos. However, even if the differences are minuscule, not any given note will sound exactly the same due to different resonances of body and strings. Until now, many keyboards and samplers represented spinets by always triggering off the exact same digital sample, leaving a sterile sounding impression. In order to improve upon previous recreations and to pay tribute to the liveliness and depth of this historical Hitchcock spinet, the producers captured 8 variations of each note.

The release sounds of the keys are also of major importance. What was originally side noise is now often overlooked and even simply left out in artificial simulations, resulting in a very abstract overall picture. Therefore, the producers recorded 4 release samples of each note.

For the critical task of recording this spinet, active tube-driven Royer R-122V ribbon microphones in conjunction with Crane Song Flamingo preamps and Universal Audio 2192 digital converters were used to do the spinet justice.

In addition to the samples, the library contains an essay in German from Professor Andreas E. Beurmann, explaining both the historical and musical background of the Hitchcock English Spinet.

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